Akshaya Patra launches its first community kitchen in Delhi

The first community kitchen of Akshaya Patra Foundation was launched in the national capital on Tuesday in the presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, a step to encourage more students to attend schools, officials said.

The kitchen, located at Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area, is the 51st kitchen run by the Bengaluru-based charitable foundation in the country.

"In our efforts to encourage more students to attend school and our serious commitment towards providing best quality meals to the students, we have collaborated with the Akshaya Patra Foundation to launch this kitchen," Sisodia was quoted as saying in a statement by the Delhi government.

It is five minutes walking distance from the city government school in the area and is also Akshaya Patra's 51st kitchen in the country, according to the statement.

The food items of the menu to be supplied include 'puri with chhole' and 'suji halwa with chana', etc.

Sisodia said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had flown to Bengaluru to inspect the quality of food services provided by the foundation and, after he felt satisfied with the food standards, invited its officials to the national capital to provide meals for students of Delhi government schools.

"The goal is to provide best quality food to our children, and today we have achieved that goal by collaborating with Akshaya Patra Foundation," he said.

"The quality of food is important, but the intent of cooking and feeding is also important. When we cook food (like our mothers do at home) with love and affection, it gets transferred to the food, and the food will taste delicious," he said.

"Likewise, the foundation thinks that serving food is a noble goal, and they have come a long way from starting with a few children, to now serving meals to lakhs of them across the country," the deputy chief minister said.

Sisodia also spoke about the need to meet minimum food quality standards and its importance.

"How can we think about the progress of this country if the quality of food that we serve to children is stale, and not up to the mark? Food is a basic essential and good quality food is a must," Sisodia said.

At a mega event in Mathura in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had served the three billionth meal, and praised the efforts of the NGO towards eradicating hunger from the country and termed its milestone "a remarkable feat".

"Delhi, we have been trying to enter for the last 10 years. We already have made two kitchens there and awaiting the nod from authorities. The Kejriwal government wants us to be there, but there are a few complications," the NGO's chairman Madhu Pandit Dasa had told PTI in Mathura.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a public, charitable, secular trust, registered in Bengaluru. The board of trustees comprise missionaries of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Bengaluru, corporate professionals, and entrepreneurs.

In 2000, the NGO started setting up kitchens in Bengaluru, in their commitment to see that children in India get access to nutritious, good quality meals in their schools.